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'{{otheruses}}poop poop poop poop poop poop poop poop [[Image:Treny normal.jpg|thumb|right|160px|[[Jan Kochanowski]] with dead daughter in painting inspired by the poet's ''[[Laments (Treny)|Laments]]'']] A '''lament''' or '''lamentation''' is a [[song]], [[poem]], or piece of [[music]] expressing [[grief]], [[regret]], or [[mourning]]. ==History== Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human [[history]] have been laments.<ref>Linda M. Austin, "The Lament and the Rhetoric of the Sublime" ''Nineteenth-Century Literature'' '''53'''.3 (December 1998:279-306) traces the literary rhetoric evoking a voice crying.</ref> Laments are present in both the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', and laments continued to be sung in [[elegiacs]] accompanied by the [[aulis]] in classical and Hellenistic Greece.<ref>Margaret Alexiou, ''Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press) 1974</ref> Lament elements figure in ''[[Beowulf]]'', in the [[Hindu]] [[Veda]]s, and in [[ancient Near East]]ern religious texts, including the Mesopotamian city laments such as the [[Lament for Ur]] and the [[Jew]]ish [[Tanakh]], (which would later become the [[Christian]] [[Old Testament]]). In many oral traditions, both early and modern, the lament has been a genre usually performed by women:<ref>Alexiou 1974; Angela Bourke, "More in anger than in sorrow: Irish women's lament poetry", in Joan Newlon Radnor, ed., ''Feminist Messages: Coding in Women's Folk Culture'' (Urbana: Illinois University Press) 1993:160-82.</ref> Batya Weinbaum made a case for the spontaneous lament of women chanters in the creation of the oral tradition that resulted in the ''[[Iliad]]''<ref>Batya Weinbaum, "Lament Ritual Transformed into Literature: Positing Women's Prayer as Cornerstone in Western Classical Literature" ''The Journal of American Folklore'' '''114''' No. 451 (Winter 2001:20-39).</ref> The material of lament, the "sound of trauma" is as much an element in the [[Book of Job]] as in the genre of [[pastoral elegy]], such as [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]]'s "Adonais" or [[Matthew Arnold]]'s "Thyrsis".<ref>Austin 1998:280f.</ref> The [[Book of Lamentations]] or ''Lamentations of Jeremiah'' figures in the Old Testament. In art the ''[[Lamentation of Christ]]'' (under many closely variant terms) is a common subject from the ''[[Life of Christ]]'', showing his dead body being mourned after the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|Crucifixion]]. A Lament in The Book of Lamentations or in the [[Book of the Psalms]] (in the particular Lament/Complaint Psalms of the [[Tanakh]], may be looked at as "a cry of need in a context of crisis when Israel lacks the resources to fend for itself."<ref>Walter Brueggeman, ''An Unsettling God'', (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) 13</ref> Another way of looking at it is all the more basic: laments simply being "appeals for divine help in distress". <ref>Michael D. Coogan, ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 370</ref> These laments, too, often have a set format: an address to God, description of the suffering/anguish which one seeks relief, a petition for help and deliverance, a curse towards one's enemies, an expression of the belief of ones innocence or a confession of the lack thereof, a vow corresponding to an expected divine response, and lastly, a song of thanksgiving. <ref>Michael Coogan, ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 370</ref> Examples of a general format of this, both in the individual and communal laments, can be seen in Psalm 3 and Psalm 44 respectively.<ref>Michael Coogan, ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament,'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 370</ref> The ''[[Lament of Edward II]]'', if it is actually written by [[Edward II of England]], is the sole surviving composition of his. A heroine's lament is a conventional fixture of [[Baroque opera|baroque]] [[opera seria]], accompanied usually by strings alone, in [[descending tetrachord]]s.<ref>Ellen Rosand, 2007. ''Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice'' (University of California Press), "The lament aria: variations on a theme" pp 377ff.</ref> Because of their plangent cantabile melodic lines, evocatively free, non-[[strophic]] construction and [[Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|adagio]] pace, operatic laments have remained vividly memorable soprano or mezzo-soprano [[aria]]s even when separated from the emotional pathos of their operatic contexts. An early example is Ariadne's "Lasciatemi morire", which is the only survivor of [[Claudio Monteverdi]]'s lost ''Arianna''. [[Francesco Cavalli]]'s operas extended the ''lamento'' formula, in numerous exemplars, of which Ciro's "Negatemi respiri" from ''Ciro'' is notable.<ref>"Negatemi respiri" and several others are noted by Rosand 2007:377f.</ref> Other examples include [[Dido's Lament|Dido's lament, "When I am laid"]] ([[Henry Purcell]], ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]''), "[[Lascia ch'io pianga]]" ([[Georg Friedrich Handel]], ''[[Rinaldo (opera)|Rinaldo]]''), "Cara mio ben" (Tomasso or [[Giuseppe Giordani]]). The lament continued to represent a musico-dramatic high point. In the context of [[opera buffa]], the Countess's lament, "Dove sono" comes as a surprise to the audience of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]'s ''[[Marriage of Figaro]]'', and in [[Gioachino Rossini]]'s ''[[Barber of Seville]]'', Rosina's plaintive words at her apparent abandonment are followed, not by the expected lament aria, but by a vivid orchestral interlude of storm music. The heroine's lament remained a fixture in romantic opera, and the Marschallin's monologue in Act I of ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'' can be understood as a penetrating psychological lament.<ref>Called "the Marschallin's Act I lament", in Jeremy Eichler, "Lushly Lamenting the Wages of Time and a Lost Golden Age" opera review in ''The New York Times'' March 15, 2005.</ref> The purely instrumental lament is a common form in [[Pìobaireachd]] music for the [[Great Highland Bagpipe|Scottish bagpipes]]. ==See also== * [[Ballad]] * [[Dirge]] * [[Doina]] * [[Elegy]] * [[endecha]] Galician lament, subgenre of the planto. * [[Kommos (theatre)|Kommós]] * [[Lament bass]] * [[Threnody]] * [[King Crimson]] track "Prince Rupert's Lament" on 1970 album ''[[Lizard (album)|Lizard]]'', an instrumental lament played with electric guitar as lead instrument, and the song "Lament" on 1974 album ''[[Starless and Bible Black]]''. ==Notes== {{reflist|2}} ==Sources== *Margaret Alexiou, ''The ritual lament in Greek tradition''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. *Walter Brueggeman, ''An Unsettling God''. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009 *Michael Coogan, ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 *[[H. Munro Chadwick]], [[Nora Kershaw Chadwick]], ''The growth of literature'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932–40), e.g. vol. 2 p.&nbsp;229. *[[Andrew Dalby]], ''Rediscovering Homer'' (New York: Norton, 2006. ISBN 0393057887) pp.&nbsp;141–143. *Gail Holst-Warhaft, ''Dangerous voices: women's laments and Greek literature''. London: Routledge, 1992. ISBN 04151216555. *Claus Westermann, ''Praise and Lament in the Psalms''. Westminster: John Knox Press, 1981. ISBN 0804217920. [[Category:Social philosophy]]ehewiufhiuewhr723463t7463b c746vb34bc32b64re326432742nx332462b3rnzxbuyecvb7xnz [[Category:Traditions]] [[Category:Genres of poetry]] [[de:Klagelied]] [[fr:Complainte]] [[it:Lamentazione]] [[he:קינה]] [[lt:Rauda]] [[ja:ラメント]] [[pl:Tren (literatura)]] [[ru:Плач (жанр)]]'